THE UNLAWFULNESS and danger of LIMITED EPISCOPACY. Whereunto is subjoined a short reply to the Modest advertiser and calm examinator of that Treatise. AS ALSO The Question of Episcopacy discussed from Scripture and Fathers. BY Robert baily Pastor of Killwunning in Scotland.  
LONDON Printed for Thomas Vnderhill, at the Bible in Woodstreet. 1641.   

To the equitable Reader.  
SOme months ago there came out, from a learned and very judicious hand, a small treatise to prove the unlawfulness and danger of limited Prelacy. Shortly there after, there appeared in answer to this, a modest Advertisement, and calm Examination, which was sent enclosed in a letter, from a Bishop of prime place, to a Stationer for the press, written whether by the Bishop himself, or a friend of his acquaintance, a Doctor of good esteem, I do not know. Some very few days after the first appearance of this answer, the reply following was ready, albeit till now it could not get the benefit of a press. I confess the Reply is not suitable to the great worth of the first Treatise, but if it do sufficiently retund with clear reason, all that the Answerer has opposed, it attains its end: of this performance be thou the judge, unto thy discretion I freely permit the pronouncing of the sentence. I could wish from thy hands but one not very unreasonable favour, that thou mightst be pleased to call for, & compare all the three Writs which are all but short, that thou wouldst lay together in every passage, first, what the Author did say, Secondly, what the Bishop or Doctor does answer, and thirdly, what is here replied. This little labour will enable thee from due consideration to make they equitable decree in the court of thy conscience, according to which thou mayst cheerfully proceed, first, to thy hearty desires, & thereafter, as thy calling permits, to thy best endeavours, either for the holding up or pulling down this much agitate estate of Bishops. Farewell.   

A Reply Unto the modest advertisement and calm examination of the unlawfulness and danger of limited EPISCOPACY.  
AMong the multitude of rare novelties, 
It is much to see that Prelatical faction modest, and calm.  which of late have been seen, We must take it for one not the least, that Episcopal men have so far in writing changed their stile, as to meet their greatest adversaries, and extreme opposites, with no more, then modest advertisements, and calm examinations. God and the Parliament must be thanked, that men may now dispute, and discourse upon Mitres, without the hazard of starving in a close prison, after the loss of ears, and stigmatising of cheeks upon the pillory. Who yesterday did rage like Lions, to day take upon them the skin of the meekest lambs. 
* This modesty is not sincere.  If with the outside, the inward parts be truly metamorphosed, a short time after the rising of this Honourable Court will declare. For the present they must pardon the world's misbelief of their total change while in the art of dissembling they are yet so imperfect, as to let appear at the lands foot their old Leonine paw: for besides that in the midst of your modesty you cannot forbear the old Common place of calumnious railing against the very well deserving Saints of God, Calvin, and Knox, as usurpers of greater authority over their brethren, than any Bishop did ever in your knowledge assume in England, 
a Pag. 6. for my own part I should be sorry to see any Bishop in this land have such authority over other Ministers, as Calvin had in Geneva, or Knox in Scotland.  Your very party whom you profess to rencontre with nothing but calmness and moderation, is traduced openly by you without any cause, as a bloody man, as one who for the obtaining of his conclusion, the overthrow of Bishops, threatens the shedding not of vulgar blood, but that of Princes, of their whole families, and no less than the ruin of Kingdoms: You make him a Turkish Dervise, 
b P. 12. As for other arguments, that if we admit not the Presbytery, there will be jealousies between us, & Scotland, that there will be changes, and periods of States, of Families, and Kingdoms, for these are insinuate in this book, and some are reported to have said that the Bishops must down, or much blood will be shed. These we think not proofs but threaten, and fit for the mouth of a Turkish Dervish, who plants Religion by the sword, then for a Minister of the Gospel of Christ.  rather than a Preacher of the Gospel, 
c Pap. 18. I shall desire the Author to remember that there may be as much ambition in Corah, as in Aaron, and as much pride in refusing to be governed, as in desiring to govern, and to consider whether these two speeches are very unlike, that of his Pag 15 Is there none in the assembly fit to be Precedent but one? and this of Corabs, Numb. 16. the Congregation is all holy, wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the Congregation of the Lord.  an ambitious Corah, a very Devil changed in an Angel of light: 
d Isid. And for the light whereof he speaks pag. 7. we desire him not to be too confident, but rather that he will remember that of the Apostle, that Satan sometimes changes himself into an Angel of light, and causes that to be reverenced as an illumination, which many times is but an illusion.  his arguments not only to be false, but Satanick illusions. Behold, this is the calmness of your examination, the meekness and moderation of your advertisement.  
The greatest part of your professed virtue, 
Wherein their meekness doth consist.  we find to consist in a key-coldnes, and well nigh mute-silence, when the hottest, and most pungent arguments approach your skin. Hear it is indeed, where the meekness of your spirit, and unwillingness to strive, doth most appear; for you are ever sure, when any pressing reason is brought, either altogether to let it go, as if you were stone-deafe, or if you take courage to contradict, your answers are so evidently impertinent, or trivial, and weak, that we might doubt whether this your opposition were made in earnest, or merely for fashion, unless we did see it in the conclusion offered unto the grave eye of the high Court of Parliament, before which no wise Man will adventure of purpose to trifle.  
Who so misdoubts the equity of this our sharp censure, let him be only pleased to fight with his own eyes both the writs, comparing part with part, and every Argument with its answer, readily after this labour he will subscribe my Sentence: To facilitate the pains of any, who are desirous to undertake this travel, I am content to go before in the way.  
The Authors Preface, 
To the Preface nothing is answered at all.  though short, yet full of nervous considerations, it is your wisdom to pass by without one syllable of examination.  
After the Preface, 
And to the first principle nothing pertinent.  the Treatise itself gins with this proposition; All the lawful offices of the Church are appointed by God in his holy word: This serves both for a Major to the first argument, and a Principle for all the ensuing discourse. The Author proves his Principle by a number of clear Scriptures, by many evident reasons deduced from Scripture, and divers grounds of the most intelligent adversaries; what oppose you to all this? That the reader may not observe how you speak to the point, you cast up at the entry a quantity of dust, to mar his sight, you lay down a Principle nothing pertinent to the purpose: You propone a number of questions, which come not near the Proposition of your party, when at last you come to your answer, you will neither grant, nor deny, nor distinguish your adversaries Proposition, nor dare you oppose any thing to the manifold arguments whereupon it is builded, only you fall in before the time, and out of the due place upon the Hypothese of Episcopacy, and by way of contrary argumentation, with some old Popish flourishes of words, you insinuate to the simple, rather than prove to any intelligent mind, that your Episcopacy, as an Apostolic institution is to be embraced with a divine faith, no less than the Creed, or the most holy Scripture.  
Your Principle is, That all would be careful to keep the public peace, as also, 
Your impertinent principle concerns none but yourself.  That no man for gain of things temporal, would lose eternal: Your Falcon flight is here so high, your springs so far away, your conduit pipes so crooked, that he must have a skilled eye who can perceive the ways, how you bring home your waters, for any use to the purpose in hand. Do you think that these who petition the Parliament, for rooting out of Episcopacy, 
e P. 2. That men be not in their consultations so misled either by some appearances of godliness, and fair colours of extraordinary zeal as thereby to hazard the disturbance of the common quiet.  which yet (as the whole I'll are now eye-witnesses) is the proper crime of your dearest friends: for who else, to keep upon their heads their tottering Mitres, did draw the King, and all his Dominions, to the very brink of the late desperate danger.  
The other half of your Principle, were very expedient to be enlarged, and gravely applied to these whom it concerns. You cannot be ignorant who these men are, who these Years past, upon no other grounds that can be conjectured, but only their own temporal advantages, and worldly fears, have betrayed the eternal truths of God. Who these are, who so long have sat still in a lethargic quietness, and yet cannot be gotten awaked to break off their dumb silence, when Arminianism, and all the heads of the Canterburian Popery, from so many Pulpits and Presses, have been overspreading the whole Land.  
The questions which so severely you urge to be answered, 
Your first questions answered.  needed not to have been at all proponed. Anent your first, suppone we grant that salvation may be obtained under Episcopacy, what then, will this infer that Bishops necessarily must be retained, and that their rooting out is needless? All your friends confess, that under the Pope, and Cardinals, salvation may be by all, and is by the most, obtained: Will you therefore conclude, that the ejection of the Pope, and Cardinals out of England, was a needless work? Your friends do so indeed, 
f Vide Ladens. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: c. 3.  And so your Episcopal principles force them, but I hope the Parliament, to whom you submit your Treatise, will be loath in haste by your persuasion to bring back the Pope, and Cardinal's Authority.  
How many good works your Bishops have forced men to omit, and how many evil to commit, search the Registers of the House of Commons, and you shall want no store.  
Shall the Reformers be in great darkness, and the Martyrs miserable, if in their days there was in the Church any thing, which they were not able to amend, or which came not in their mind to complain of? Did any Martyr of the Reformed Church ever die in the quarrel of Episcopacy, or Ceremonies? Did their persecutors require them to seal any of these things with their blood? Was it any disgrace to these Martyrs that Queen Elizabeth rectified many things in King Edward's Liturgy, and went beyond that Reformation which in their days was attained?  
Your second questions are not unlike the first, 
Also your second.  for their pertinency. All the Reformed World is fully agreed to have Episcopacy overthrown, only some few of the English Church, for their own interest do oppose. There is as great an harmony among all in setting up of Presbyteries, and Synods, as in casting out the old rubbish of Bishops and their Courts; If some few of the English be scrupulous about the limits, bounds, and extent of the power of Synods, It is no marvel, Episcopal tyranny has bred, and fostered more Schisms in England, then have been heard of in all the Reformed Churches beside; If this fountain of Schism were once well stopped, We make no question, but as in Scotland, Holland, France, Swize, Geneva, and many places in Germany, there is no discord, so like ways in England, one or two well governed general Assemblies would amicably put an end to all the questions that are, or need to be moved about the Discipline, or any thing else whatsoever.  
What you inquire further, of the divine right of Presbytery, of the places of Scripture brought to prove it, of the sense, and consequences of the Scriptures. In all reason you are obliged to hear with us great Patience avow that the Scripttures we bring, do infer necessarily, and clearly our Concusion, till you brought some material answer to the contrary.  
The last of your Questions, 
Your last Question answered  is but a flash of your Rhetoric faculty of exaggeration, yourself must make answer to it; for you do say that God discharges under pain of damnation all that is unlawful, and that every thing is unlawful which is against the Word of God: That Presbyters, by the Word of God, have the power of laying on the hands, and of using the keys, you will shortly grant; that therefore an Episcopacy should be permitted, to spoil these Presbyters of the privileges which God in his word has granted unto them, or to usurp unto themselves, and devolve on their Officials, the Rites of the inferior Clergy, you dare not deny to be a wrong which deserves amending.  
At last you come to the purpose, 
The Author's principle left unbrauled.  the Authors Principle, but you find it so hot, that you dare not stand long upon it.  
You tell us first, that the Authors discourse upon this Principle is written with much art, and eloquence, for insinuation with the unwary Reader. Who pleaseth to read the writ itself, shall see, that all the art of the Author is in a very plain discourse to couch, so briefly as is possible, a number of clear and strong probations, for to convince the mind of all attentive Readers.  
Again, you tell us that the Principle may be granted. Why do you mutter betwixt your teeth? speak out clearly, and plainly, for if you grant it, your cause is lost, if you deny it, your next will be to answer the numerous arguments, wherewith it is compassed, not any one whereof you are bold to try.  
In the third place, that you may leave a postern for escaping, the Author's clear and plain principle, That no office is lawful in God's house, which Christ has not appointed, you transform in an other mould, to wit, That none may administer the Word or Sacraments, impose hands, or use the keys, but such as Christ has appointed; When thus you have taken leave to corrupt, not the words only, but the matter of your adversaries very principle, 
Episcopal Courts acknowledged to be unlawful  Notwithstanding you see the Conclusion that flows from your own proposition, to wit, that your high Commissioners, your Chancellors, and all the Rabble of your Official Courtiers do meddle with Church censures contrary to Christ's appointment; This you do not deny, but bear us in hand that these corruptions may be amended without noise, or scandal. It were good that your friends in the Convocation would preveen the honourable House of Commons, that at last they would offer of free accord to pass from these long defended oppressing Courts, before with greater noise and shame they be compelled to render to the Presbytery these Rites, whereof too long it has been dispossed, by your Bishop's fraud and force.  
When you have broken in unseasonably upon the Hypothese of Episcopacy, how marvellously do you shift, and extenuate the question? The author's principle did speak expressly, and solely, of a distinct office in the Church of God: you dare not say whether Episcopacy be any such thing or not, All the distinction betwixt a Bishop and a Presbyter that you speak of, is a higher, and lower degree, as it were of the same office: Your Brethren will give you small thanks for this extenuation; for you know they maintain Episcopacy to be a true, and distinct office from the Priesthood, unto the which, beside a Superiority of degree, the distinct faculty or power of Ordination, and Jurisdiction, essentially doth belong, wherewith simple priests, qua tales, have nought at all to do.  
Beside, the Author's principle, and the probations thereof, conclude all that you here do require, for they infer the unlawfulness of any majority of one Church Officer over another, without Christ's appointment, from so clear texts of Scripture, and so sound grounds of uncontroverted Divinity, as you find not yourself disposed to answer any one of them.  
While as you require proof in that place, for all the other parts of our Discipline, you are unreasonable. When you have given satisfactory answers to all that is brought in the head of Episcopacy, it will be then time, and no sooner, to proceed unto other Articles, which so long as Episcopacy stands, were needless to be spoken of.  
In your contrary argumentations you undertake to prove a very strange conclusion, 
Your great words extolling Episcopacy are full of vanity.  That the order of Bishops is no less Apostolical, than the very Creed, and to be received with no less faith than the very Scriptures, yea, with much more, as it seems you import; for you equal the Scriptures and Bishops in this, that both are alike universal, and unquestioned traditions: but in this you seem to give Bishops a surer ground than you grant to Scriptures, for the ground whereupon you here, and many of your fellows elsewhere embrace the Scriptures, is sole Tradition, but the grounds whereupon you receive the order of Bishops, is not sole tradition; but sundry passages of Scripture also as you allege.  
This your mighty Conclusion you prove not by any argument, but only by a number of big words borrowed from the Papists, in this same and many more subjects. You tell us that many Scriptures are alleged for Episcopacy, and that these Scriptures are exponed in your sense by all the Fathers, yea, by all Writers for fifteen hundred years. I hope that yourself will find it reason that we be permitted to take your great words for nought, but vain echoes in the Air, while you be pleased to produce at least some one Scripture, some one Father, some one Writer, which here you have not done. Also while you would have us taking it on your naked word, that all times, all places, all persons are for Bishops, and that for such Bishops as you here expressly describe, to whom alone it belongs to rule, as it is proper for the inferior Presbyters to be ruled, suffer us to say that you are greatly mistaken, till we have heard some one of your proofs. Your patience will here I hope be the greater, when you read in the subsequent writ for this our contradiction more Scriptures and Fathers than you in haste are like satisfactorily to answer. 
The question of Episcopacy discussed.  In that same short writ you will see all the Scriptures, and the most pregnant passages of antiquity which the best learned on your side are accustomed to produce, answered by the ancients themselves so clearly, that while you give some evidence to the contrary, Indifferent men will pronounce, that we have but too good reason to avow Episcopacy as yourself in the same place describes it, to be a plant which God never set in his garden, to be a mere stranger to the ancient Church for some hundred years, and ever while the Pope had usurped mainly by the help of his Episcopal jurisdiction, many Antichristian privileges.  
Your consequences, besides the palpable error of your Antecedent, are weak, vicious, and inconsequent; though your Episcopacy be an Antichristian error, yet it will not follow that all people who are subject to it must be condemned as Antichristian, and false worshippers of God; for you know that one fault and one quality is not sufficient to put on the subject an absolute denomination. What you add of the fountain and original of Presbyteries, it shows, if not your ignorance, yet your great forgetfulness, not only what Cyprian, and other of the ancients have written of the Presbyteries in their times, but also what yourself within a few pages does write of Presbyteries which you could admit, though with an Episcopal Moderator.  
This is the matter of your first six pages, 
To the Author's first argument the answer is Popish and nought.  upon the Authors Principle; when you come to his Arguments, your Answers are shorter, but nothing better. The first Argument, That these places of Scripture, which of purpose, and most punctually set down the offices of God's house, especially the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, speak not at all of your Bishops. You first deny the Argument, albeit in your denial you are so rational, as neither to give any reason for what you say, nor to answer any of the proofs whereby the Author confirmed his assertion, Than you deny the ground whereupon the argument is builded, The Principle which before in the proper place you durst not deny, but rather did insinuate your granting of it; however the Authors Probation of that Principle stands as yet untouched.  
While you tell us here that Tradition is a sufficient ground for Episcopacy though Scripture were lacking, you but join with your Brethren the Canterburians, who upon this ground press upon us already their Altars, Crosses, Images, the primacy of the Pope, and much more, and show their mind by this door to let in upon us the whole flood of Antichristian abominations, when they find their season, especially as yourself here does profess, any matter of practice, of discipline, of government. This your popish error of tradition is a very general, and catholic one, which shakes not one or two but all the ground-stones of Protestant reformations.  
The Authors second Argument is, 
The second you answer by a nonsense and childish toy.  That no inferior officer in the new testament, carries the name of any superior; but so it is that a Presbyter every where carries the name of a Bishop; Therefore a Presbyter is not an inferior officer to a Bishop. What here you bring, is so far from the show of any answer, that it is like you have not conceived the drift of the Argument, only the non sense of your reply is compensed with your extraordinary quickness, to take your adversary twice in his own argument, in his own net, first you will put him to a non plus by an Interrogatory, where then are ruling Elders by their names distinguished? you have read I believe the 1. Timothy 5.17. there you may see ruling Elders, by their name, and surname, clearly distinguished from Preachers of the word; you know also that there are a number of passages of the Fathers for these ruling Elders in the book of Gersombucerus, which the boldest of your party for all their big words and exclamations in the ears of silly people, durst never yet after twenty two year's advisement so much as offer to answer.  
Thereafter you triumph as if you had drawn from your Adversaries own pen, by an ocular demonstration, the full proof of your whole conclusion. The superiority of a Bishop to a Presbyter by divine right, because forsooth the author says, That Bishop and Pastor which are all one, are made by the Apostle superior to a Presbyter. We did not believe that any man of the least acquaintance with these controversies, had been ignorant of that common, and trivial homonomie of the word Presbyter, and Elder, sometimes taken for a preaching Elder, sometimes for a ruling Elder, and sometimes for both. The Author with the Scriptures makes, a Pastor, a Bishop, a preaching elder, to be altogether one, and in nothing to differ, but as three synonimous names of one, and the same officer, which by divine right is indeed superior to a ruling Elder, or Presbyter, this no man ever did question, but no way superior to a preaching Elder, of whom alone is all the present question.  
The Author's third and fourth Argument confirmed strongly by a number of pregnant Scriptures, are all utterly misspent, 
To the third and fourth argument no syllable of answer appears.  and not one word of answer made to either of them.  
His fifth Argument, 
The fifth is in show granted.  That by Christ's institution & the constant practice of the Apostles, the power of ordination, and jurisdiction, is never committed to one Bishop, but ever to a number of Preachers and others, as is cleared, by a multitude of manifest Scriptures. This you cannot deny, yet your heart will not permit you freely to grant it. You are content that in ordination, and jurisdiction, Bishops should be assisted by Presbyters, but the argument infers much more, to wit that your Bishops in usurping to themselvs the power of jurisdiction, & transferring of it to their carnal courts, that their assuming by virtue of their office the power of ordination, though for the form they admit some Presbyters to be their assistants in giving of orders, that both these faculties which make not the abuse but the two main limbs, and integral parts of the office itself, are wicked practices against Christ's ordinance, not to be reform, but presently abolished, with a great remorse, that with a high hand for so long a time these tyrannous usurpations have been maintained.  
The sixth Argument was from the 22. 
The sixth is absurdly answered.  Luke 25. where Christ forbids all Pastors to accept any Majority or pre-eminence over their brethren, This the Author proves from Scripture, Reason, and Antiquity, to evert the office of Bishops. All that you answer is that this place does not forbid the Apostles to accept any degree of Honour above their brethren wherein they may govern them for their profit, It follows then that by this place Bishops are not hindered to assume as great authority over the Church as the greatest Emperors ever had over the bodies, or Christ himself as you confess here over the souls of men.  
Having evinced the unlawfulness of Episcopacy itself by the former Arguments, 
The Author's first reason against all limitation of Episcopacy is but slighted.  nothing enervate by all your Opposition, in the rest of the treatise the Author reasons against the lawfulness of the least degrees, and best limitations of that evil; his first argument is well confirmed with Scripture, and reason, you answer but to one piece, casting by the first, and strongest parts of it, to wit, all parts, all degrees, all means, all appearances of the discharged evil; you had good reason to cut off all these portions from the Argument, for you saw that your distinction was not applicable to these, for you will be loath to deny that Episcopacy, howsoever limitate, is some degree, some part, some mean, some appearance, not by accident, but of its own nature, of that Episcopacy which now stands in England.  
The part of the Argument which you take in hand is not sufficiently answered, for you clear your distinction with no more than your own simple assertion, That limited Episcopacy is not in itself, but alone by Satan's malice, either a cause, or a beginning, or a provocation to Episcopacy as now it stands; Surely that effect which has followed limited Episcopacy, in all places where ever it has dwelled, may not well be denied to be natural unto it, however you dare not apply your distinction, for it will sound harshly in the ears of your Neighbours, that limited Episcopacy should be a beginning, & a provocation, by the malice and craft of the Devil, of that Episcopacy which now in Rome and England has place.  
The Author in the next place by clear Scriptures does prove, 
The second is unwittingly granted.  That the reformation of Episcopacy must be taken, not from the times of the posteriour Fathers, but from the beginning, the days of Christ, and the Apostles; your answer is short, but how good, yourself be judge. You grant the Argument in all things which have a divine pattern; but that Presbyterial Government is such, you deny: you remember that the question here is alone of Episcopacy, what say you of its pattern? if its pattern be not divine you have lost your labour; If it be divine, then according to yourself it must be conformed to the first, and Apostolical times. As for Presbyterial Government which placeth the power of Ordination and Jurisdiction, never in one, but in a multitude of Presbyters, that the pattern thereof is scriptural, and divine, yourself before durst not contradict.  
While you make it the Author's tenet, that all the fathers, and all Christians, in all ages throughout the world, have agreed to bring forth Antichrist, we acknowledge a tract of your professed modesty, for the furthest the Author says is that many of the fathers did unwittingly bring forth the Antichrist, and that the lights of the Protestant Churches, at, and since the reformation, have discovered many secrets concerning the Antichrist, which were not known in former ages; that you have not faith to believe this, We do not marvel, for this is one of the heads among many more, wherein you of the faction, long ago have made Apostasy from the English, and all the reformed Churches; So far are your brethren from denying the Pope's Antichristianisme, that they avow his holiness this day to be a true and lawful Bishop, the first Patriarch of the Christian world, from whose See of Rome the English derive their succession, and to whom in reason all Bishops where ever they live, ought subjection, and canonical obedience.  
In the third place the Author casts together a number of grave considerations against all degrees of Episcopacy, 
The third also but slighted.  almost in every sentence is couched a pithy Argument. In your answers you are in such haste, that you cast all behind your Back, you ascribe to him that he did not write, that Popery and Prelacy are inseparable; This your own conceit you refute, but of all your party hath said, you take notice of nothing, save one word, that Prelacy is a step to Popery; Sundry reasons are brought by the Author to prove this, all which you misken, only you argue to the contrary, that the suppressing of Episcopacy is the way for supporting of Popery and introducting Anarchy. Upon this last you run out in a large discourse; for this is the field wherein you of the faction are wont to expatiate with greatest delight.  
You prove your first point by a clear mistake, 
All Papists advancers of Episcopacy.  distinguish the Accident from the Subject, Episcopacy from Bishops, you will find that neither the Council of Trent, nor any Popish Divine are for suppressing of Episcopacy; This office to the uttermost of their power they all uphold, neither have you or any of your brethren any one argument for that office, which is not borrowed from them: It is true that the most of the Papalines do suppress other Bishops, to make great their Pope, but the means whereby they put under the Pope's feet both Bishops, Friars, and all, both Clergy, and Laity, is chief this unhappy instrument of Episcopacy, which in the Pope's person they advance to the highest degree of its extension, and this is nothing less than true Antichristianisme. If you have read Padre Paulo's History of that Council you name, you must subscribe what I have said.  
That from the removal of Episcopacy, 
The putting down of the Bishops would bring to an end the present confusions and schisms.  confusion and anarchy does follow, you would have the Divines of New England to prove by the Author's principles. The manifold conclusions which you ascribe to these Divines, whether they will own them or not, themselves do know, with their tenets I am not well acquainted, only it seems nothing marvellous, if Episcopal cruelty banishing them to the Wilderness of a new World, should have driven them to greater extravagancies than any you name, but were they once freed of all fear of that monster Episcopacy, and brought back to their Country, where in liberty and peace they might enjoy in a national assembly, the benefit of a leisurely conference with their brethren, we make little doubt of their acquiescing to the government of all the rest of the Reformed Churches.  
As for these grounds, you make the Author lay for them, you are no more happy here then in the rest of your writ; For this is your Syllogism. Whatsoever God has not established in his Church, is unlawful; but God has not established that some pastors should be over others; therefore this is unlawful: What a poor caption is in your minor in the word Some taken for one only, or for more, for one Bishop, or for more Pastors, & Elders convened in a Synod or Presbytery? That any one should rule over the rest, the Author has proved it to be against the ordinance of God; That a Presbytery and Synod of many should be over every one particular person, when ever it shall be challenged, it may be easily proved to be according to holy Scripture and all good reason.  
What you subjoine about the State of the question, though it be not very tymous in the end of your dispute, yet we shall consider it since you so request. You say that the state of the question is not whether a Bishop in the Primitive times had a Presbytery under him, This you dare not deny unto us, for you know too well, and all that have looked upon any of the Ancients, must confess that a Bishop without a Presbytery was a strange Monster in the primitive times, and a plain non ens not to be found in many hundred years in the Christian World. But withal you may not deny the impudent oppression of your Bishops in England. 
You must confess the oppression and impudence of the Bishops.  Their oppression in that (as they have learned alone from Popish Bishops in the late most corrupt times) they have abolished the ancient Presbyteries, It is true that some of them now, when they are like to be compelled to live a little in order, begin to show their contentment to have set up again in all the Kingdom these Presbyteries, but who of them all before this time were ever heard to speak one word of restoring the Church to the use of Presbyterial government, which now they dare not deny to be her due by right both divine and also Ecclesiastic, in all the ancient times of any purity. Their impudence that hitherto they have had faces and brows to bear the King and State in hand, that their Episcopal Government without Presbyteries was according to the Practice of the ancient Church, that Antiquity, Universality, and what not, was for them, when yet the least twitch of trial must extort from them a clear confession, That the chief sinews of that government which was universal in the ancient Church, was seated in the body of Presbyteries, the very name whereof till the sitting down of this Parliament all of you did abhor, cane pejus, et angue. If there remain any drop of ingenuous blood, you would proclaim openly, and no more mutter within your teeth, that your late injurious error, and without further delay yourself be the first, and most earnest Solicitor of the Parliament, for the re-erection in all the Kingdom of these Presbyteries, which now at last you confess were universally in use in all the purer times of antiquity.  
As for that which you desire to be the State of the question, 
English Episcopacy is a late corruption, a mere stranger to the ancient Church.  whether ever there was a Presbytery without a Bishop over it, you will I hope be content after the fashion of reasonable men to speak of things not of names, you will make no question with us about the name of Bishops, which we never deny to be frequent, both in Scripture, and antiquity, But the thing signified by this name, An officer, as all your party describes him, who in his Diocese hath the power of Ordination, and Jurisdiction, by virtue of his office, This is the subject of all our question. You affirm that in the ancient times Bishops in this Sense were set over Presbyteries, We do deny. We should be glad to see your Affirmation proved, that ever there was in the Church of God any such Bishops before the Pope had brought his Bishopric to the Cope-stone of Antichristianisme; Our negative we have laboured to prove in the following treatise, by more passages of antiquity than you will have leisure in haste to answer.  
As for the Bishops of the ancient Church which agree with yours only in the naked name, but in the essential parts of the office do differ as much as the Duke of Venice this day from the Duke of Muscovie, as the Emperors of Rome in the days of Seneca from the old Imperatores in the time of the Commonwealth: The question about them will be whether their right in these ancient times was divine, or human, whether they stood by Apostolic tradition, or alone by Ecclesiastical constitution established at the Church's pleasure, and so by her free will removable. You will be a better disputer than any of your side who yet have appeared if you can make good the first, yea that you can prove the second to have been universal, we do not believe. If every Church would search their original rights, as they of Scotland have done their own, readily as these have found their Church in the most ancient times governed by Presbyters without any bishops at all, so much as in name, for some hundred years, so many other national Churches might find the same upon the like diligence of trial; however when it comes to the exactest search, it will appear that Episcopacy was at most but an humane Ecclesiastic constitution, neither more ancient, more universal, nor received upon any better grounds than the Primacy of the Patriarch of Rome, than the manifold fraternities of the Monks, Friars, and Nuns, These, though according to your friend's assertion, so anciently, so universally, so piously established, that all the reformed, and England among the rest, are much to be blamed both for their first rashness to reject, and there too long lingering since to restore them, yet as England did never repent the casting out of the former, according to the example of her sisters abroad, so now we believe, if she may be pleased to follow the same example in casting out the other she shall have as little cause of sorrow.  
The Author did show at length the vanity of their expectation who deceive themselves with hopes to get Bishops kept in order by the bonds of any imaginable limitations: 
No caveats are able to keep Bishops long in order.  for the demonstration hereof, he sets down the caveats, whereby the Scottish Kirke and Kingdom did bind their Bishops, than which England can not invent harder this day for theirs. The knot cannot be faster tied. The Scots had their Bishop's consent, subscription, and solemn oath, The King in person in the general Assembly did ratify the bargain, numbers of Parliaments did establish the liberties of Presbyteries. Sundry reasons the Author brings to clear that England is not able at this time to employ such means to keep their Bishops low, as Scotland then did use, your answer to all is compendious: you say that all your adversaries arguments are weak, but how your saying may be proved, you take not time to tell us.  
The Author in the end of his writ makes answer to a number of the common jargous of Prelatical men, 
Presbyterial government a heavier hammer to schism then Episcopal.  especially that of Schism in the Church, and danger to the State, which by the removal of Episcopacy, they take upon them to prophesy, will certainly fall out: To both these Objections he gives a number of very satisfactory and grave replies. In your answer you misken well near them all, These few you pick out are cast in a strange confusion here and there in your Papers.  
Against his replies to the first objection of Schism, you rejoinder that the divisions of New England are witnesses of these Schisms which proceed from the want of Episcopacy: you do well to speak to us of men in an other World, with whose estate we are not acquainted, but can you say that there are half so many Schisms in New England where Bishops are not, as we see in Old England where Bishops are in their full Strength. Speak of the things we know, Behold the Churches of Europe, from whence Bishops are banished, Scotland, France, Holland, Swize, Geneva, etc. Did you ever hear of any either Schism or Heresy, in these places, except when Presbyterial government was suppressed? did that discipline any sooner get leave to employ its native strength, but in a short time it made the Countries where it dwelled free of all these evils  
It is made evident in the next place, 
If Bishops stand schism in England must increase.  that the keeping of Episcopacy on foot any longer, in all probability will fill the Church of England with many pitiful divisions, both amongst themselves at home, and from all their Neighbours abroad; concerning the reformed Churches over sea you answer, that in time bigon you have kept good correspondence with them, notwithstanding of all the difference in discipline; but truly the correspondence you speak of is to be ascribed much rather to the patience and long suffering of your good Neighbours, then to any well deserving of your Bishops: for their doctrine in the point of Episcopacy, is clearly Schismatical, as you may see in the Pedagogic, and Master Likes Letter of Andrews to Muleine, and in other of your Prelatical writs, where your men with the Papists, by all the arguments they can invent, do press the Reformed Churches to embrace their Episcopacy as an Apostolic institution, the want whereof puts them from the very being of a Church, & makes the calling of their Preachers to be unlawful, without any right. This wound, I grant your Bishops, when they have given it, go about incontinent to cure, but in vain, for if their ground of Episcopacies divine right hold, it is not possible to defend the calling of these Ministers who refuse Episcopal Ordination.  
While here you prefer for number, and equal both for learning and piety, the Lutheran Churches to all the rest of the Reformed, we do not marvel, since you contemn them both so fare, that when they are joined together, being compared with the Roman Church, and the Grecian which follows the Roman in the most of her errors and Idolatries, to be but a few persons in the West of Europe, not comparable with all the Christians, as you speak Pag. 12. upon the face of the earth.  
You profess at last, it is a small thing to you, to differ from all the Reformed, when you join with the ancient Kirke in the first three hundred Years; we have shown before the vanity of this Language, for in Episcopal Government, you differ little less from the ancient Kirke, then from the Reformed, of whom ye were speaking, for the ancient Presbytery is a stranger to your Land, and your Episcopacy would be as great a stranger in any Christian Kirke, for the first five hundred Years, as the drink of Muscovia would be this day in Venice, or the Empire of Tiberius in Rome, in the days of Cato the elder.  
The Author named the jealousies that would be inavoidable betwixt the two Kirks of England and Scotland, if Episcopacy, which the one, with the King, and all the World's consent hath cast down, should by the other be kept on foot; upon this passage you fall once and again, at the first time, that you may have a larger scope for a tract of your modesty, you draw a passage from another fare distant place of the Authors writ, where he says no more, but that vices contrary to piety, righteousness, and sobriety, where they do reign, are certain forerunners and causes of many calamities, judgements, and changes of States, Kingdoms, and Families. This you cut out from its own place, and join with the forenamed sentence, that from both you may make out your very modest conclusion, that your author, more like a Turkish Darvise, than a Minister of the Gospel, does threaten to overthrow Bishops, by the bloody Sword, by the change of States, Families, and Kingdoms, and that not the author alone, but also all the Presbyterians, yea, the Presbyterial government itself, is guilty of persecuting the persons, and tyrannously pressing the souls of men, no less than the papists; if this be your stile when your mood is calm, how crabbed must your dialect be when you are commoved?  
When in your roving you fall the second time upon this same point, you answer somewhat more pertinently than is your custom, That you trust the Scots will count it as unreasonable to have their discipline pressed upon the English, as they did esteem it, to have the English pressed upon them; but I pray you, what if the Scots should leave here their own way, and follow your example, might any of you in reason complain of such a retaliation? Did ever your Bishops give over to force upon the Scots the English Government with all their might, till the whole Isle was in arms, and in the midst of a dangerous war? Left they ever their design, till God, the King, and the Parliament, made them unable for a further prosecution thereof. It is like that the Scots will be loath to follow that your example; Yet certainly, they have all the reason of the World to persuade with all their power, their Brethren of England to join with them, and all the Reformed every where, to batter down that unhappy Episcopacy, without any resting, till the greatest Bishop, the Antichrist himself, from whom the Prelates of England confess they draw the line of their pedigree be overthrown, and quite abolished.  
If in this no less noble than necessary enterprise the English will be lacking to themselves, in this season of so golden an occasion, the Scottish cannot fail to register for the posterity a Protestation of their great and too well grounded fears, that Episcopacy in England may well change the habit, but never the nature, that as it has been ever since the Reformation a bitter fountain of almost all the troubles that hath vexed the Scotish Kirk, so it shall remain like itself a Spring of future woes to the Churches of the whole Isle.  
The domestic divisions which are like to increase amongst the Subjects of England, if that root we speak of be not drawn up, and cast over Sea towards Rome whence it came, the author expresseth them clearly; all that you answer is a salt gibe; it is truly strange if any should make question that as to this day many of the most Godly in England who have been far from resisting authority in any thing, yet could never follow the Doctrine of the Bishops so far, as with them to believe that the sentence of authority, whether Civil or Ecclesiastic, was a sufficient argument to persuade their conscience that Bishops were a holy ordinance, so hereafter that many more who walk most carefully according to the rule of God's law, will refuse to submit their hearts to the government of Bishops, though after the loss of their cares, their Heads should be chopped off from their shoulders.  
The Author in his Answer to the second ordinary Objection, anent the danger of change, 
No hazard to the State in changing the present government of the Church.  propones a number of very wise considerations, whereby he makes it evident, that presbyterial Government will much better accord with the estate of England, then Episcopal; all these you pass by in your answer, only you snatch at a word or two, in some few of them. The Author upon presupposition of his first principle, that no Office might be permitted in the House of God, without his own appointment, inferreth, that as a man would be loath to suffer any of his servants to place in his house Governors beside his own knowledge: so that Christ will not be content when any does erect in his Church, Bishops to be guides, which he did never ordain.  
You touch not the point while ye tell us, that a Wiseman would never permit a Democraty to be erected in his Family, and so that none would set up a Presbytery in the Church; a Presbytery is not a Democracie, but be what ever it may, the reason here proceeds alone from the authority of a Master, to plant in his own house what Government he will, without liberty for servants to dispute the quality thereof.  
In the current of his Discourse, 
You snatch at some few of the Authors words, but let pass without answer, the most of his matter.  amongst other interrogations, the author did question, if in a whole Synod there was none meet to presede, but only one perpetually: For it is well known that in every diocese there is a number much meeter for any good service then the Bishop. Of this harmless question you make a great quarrel, and compare the author to Cora, yourself to Aaron, and his interrogation to the rebellious speeches of that wicked man, Numb. 16.  
When the whole has sufficiently overthrown all the matter of Episcopacy, whether absolute or limitate, he bringeth sundry arguments, why the very name of a Bishop would not be retained, but you are not pleased to take notice of any one of them.  
In the last two pages, very clearly by divers evidences, he declareth the great and rare opportunity which God hath put in the hand of this present Parliament to remove the whole root of Episcopacy, with as great ease, as to cut off its branches; all this you misken, only to give us a further taste of the temper of your modest Spirit, you insinuate, Pag. 14. that the greatest opportunity you can remark in this season, is for men by fraud and force to work out their own ends.  
When you have done with the author, 
The right of Presbyteries is divine, not humane only.  you turn yourself to two other sorts of men, first to these who press Presbyterian Discipline upon a mere humane right; who these are I do not know, if any such be, it seems they are more unconsiderate than your very self, and many others of the Prelatical faction, who dare not now deny, what ever before was their language, the divine right of the Presbytery, that the principal members thereof, the preaching Presbyters, are invested by God with the power of Ordination, and Jurisdiction, though the Bishops of England, ever since the Reformation, have spoiled them of their due, and kept them in slavery, as much altogether if not more, as the Romish Bishops do their inferior slaves of the Clergy this day.  
The two considerations you bring to bear off these men are both impertinent, 
Your plea for keeping up of Bishops, is the very same which the Papists used against King Henry the Eighth, for the upholding of the Pope and Monks.  The first was pressed with much more acuracie and eloquence, than you, or any of your party can use, by More the Chancellor, and the Cardinal of Rochester, in the days of Henry the eighth; it was the ordinary and passionate declamation of these men, that the Pope's authority was ever reverenced in England, since it was Christian, That for many ages it had been confirmed, by numbers of Parliaments, That Abbots and Priors were a considerable part of the Parliament, at least four times more than Bishops, That Monks, Friars, and Nuns had been established in all times, in all places, That the casting out of these would be a change exceeding dangerous for the State, That the keeping of the things with the removal of the abuses would be a reformation satisfactory to all reasonable complainers. This here is your most specious plea answered long ago by the actions of King Henry, King Edward, Queen Elizabeth, to use now any verbal reply were but superfluous.  
What you speak of the great learning of your Bishops, suppone it to be true, yet you are exceedingly prejudicated, if you see not as much if not more of that quality in far more of the English Divines who never were Bishops, these few whose eminencies hath kithed in the episcopal charge might have advanced further, as themselves will confess, both in learning and piety, if they never had been burdened with Episcopal distractions.  
Your gloriation of the honour done by strangers to your Divines we do not envy, only we conceive you mistaken, when you apply the respects done to the fame of the Church of England unto the persons of the Bishops, let be to their Episcopacy, what ever respect that gracious Kirk has gotten from any stranger, we believe it might have been multiplied if their Bishops had long ago been abolished, for they & their tail hath been always the only subject of fear and restraint of the full and plenary affections of foreign Churches towards their Sister of England. 
Yourselves are forced to agree unto all the considerable changes that are requifite.  To fall out upon that Common place of changes in Church or State, it doth not well become you, since both yourself, and all these of your Prelates, who would be conceived to have any sponke, either of piety, wisdom, or moderation, do willingly consent to the far greatest part of the change, whereby you would affright the State at this time; for yourself along all this Treatise, and the prime of your Prelates, in the draughts of Government that come from their hands, seem to acknowledge the necessity of erecting Presbyteries over all the Land, and pulling at last from the Bishops, the power of Ordination and Jurisdiction, which too long they have unjustly possessed, that therewith the Presbyteries and Synods may be invested, to whom by Divine Right they grant it belongs. Further, the putting down of the Chancellor and Official Courts as merely abusive, the removing also of all the Clergy from Secular employments, and so from the House of Parliament. What more is petitioned, will not introduce any farther change, either of custom or Laws, that is considerable; while therefore yourself do offer to begin, or at least to go on with the far greatest part of the change, you ought not to be heard in opposing some farther Reformation than you can agree to upon the pretended danger of alteration.  
Your other consideration is less pertinent to the purpose, 
The world has had too long and too heavy experience of the ungracious fruits of Episcopacy.  but more injurious to your professed modesty, your prudence here is not ruled by reason, while you advise the holding out of the required discipline for some years, till by experience you have seen the fruits of it amongst your neighbours; is not the experience of twice forty years and above, which many places have felt both of the Presbuteriall and Episcopal discipline, more than sufficient? in all the reformed Churches we see poured out upon the Presbytery by the hand of God, the first author of it, plentiful blessings, We see Episcopacy cursed in every soil it cometh with very bad consequences, in the Romish Churches this government is the powerful instrument of Satan to bar out the light of the Gospel, in England and Scotland we have seen grow upon it the Apples of strife, superstition, pride, and many other evils, till of late it did become the horse, whereupon came posting to the whole Isle, Arminianism, Popery, and a bloody war for the hazard of the lives, estates, liberties, and all that was dear to any man, if the miraculous hand of God had not cast the Horse & his rider in the ditch of his vengeance; those that would wait any longer to get any further experience of the fruits of Episcopacy may in justice meet with the mischiefs which ordinarily fall upon them who tempt the Almighty.  
What you speak of the unquietness of the Church of Scotland in the time of the Presbyterian discipline, it is far beyond the truth, never Church more quiet and free from inward divisions then that of Scotland, from the beginning to this hour, except so far as this unhappy instrument of Episcopacy did create them trouble.  
Your boasting of so great Piety and virtue of those plants who have grown under the shadow of your government needs not any answer.  
Comparisons are odious, where England had ever one gracious Plant, we wish it had been multiplied to a 1000, yet we must be permitted to think that the goodness which has appeared in any member of the English Church has flowed from other fountains than that dry one of Episcopacy, what grace it hath been the instrument of, to those who have been nearest to its influence, what virtues are most conspicuous in their families, their cathedrals, their Chaptors, their Courts, the World knows, If you were so wise as you pretend, you would have been silent at this time of Episcopal fruits; read over the thousands of petitions that are presented already to the eyes of this very Parliament against Bishops, and Preachers, their greatest favourites, you dare not say, if all the crimes that ever were known, let be presented to any judicatory, of all the presbyterian Preachers this hundred years were put to gether, that either in number or quality they come near to the black roll which the registers of this own year will transmit to the ears of after ages, of the gracious effects of that your noble plant. Who so will take pains to compare the crimes presented to the Parliaments in the days of Henry the Eighth, against the Friars, Monks, and Nuns of those times, for which their whole orders were for ever banished the land, with these which now are delated of the Bishops and their faction, We believe that the former shall be found not so important for the razing of the Abbacies, as the later do require the pulling up by the root of that old rotten tree of whose fruits you are here boasting.  
The other kind of men you admonish are a multitude of your brethren in the Prelatical faction, 
Your reproof of these crying abominations whereof you confess the Prelates to be guilty is both cold and short.  whom you say are too obstinate in retaining what ever hath been established; your advertisement to them is calm, modest, & short enough, it is but in some few particulars (and that with the clause of a perhaps) wherein the general and constant clamour against them, you confess, is justifiable and aught to be heard. How faintly and coldly touch you upon these evils which your conscience doth know to be crying abominations, and to have been long committed with an high hand? you name but too few; their abolishing of the fourth Command: of the Moral Law, their turning of all the piety of the Gospel, into a number of Legal, and Popish Ceremonies, their contempt of Souls for the love of money, in a world of Pluralists, and non-resident, their mixing of Heaven and Earth, Christ and the World, in joining to the burden of their spiritual charge, the load of all the temporal offices which by any means they can attain, they teach, that the Bishop is the only proper Pastor of his whole Diocese, to whom alone the immediate and most proper care of all the souls in that great flock doth belong, and yet as if it were not enough to charge one poor man with the cure of some five or six hundred thousand persons, yea of some forty or fifty hundred thousand, for readily the diocese of Lincoln will exceed the first number, and that of London the second, as if all these brought not burden enough to the shoulders of one man, The weight of the great Seal and of the white staff, the greatest temporal offices in the Kingdom, must be joined thereto, that the censure of the Church should be rest, against all Law Divine, and humane, out of the hands of Preachers, & cast on the rabble of your Laic Canonists, that they by their Courts may make havoc of the goods and persons of the whole Nation, In all these you do well to confess your sin in fight against the voice of God, in your impudent outfacing, and obstinate resisting the clear light of all reason; here it was indeed where your pen would have been a little more pungent, for you know, you have to do with an hard hearted generation of men, who mind reformation in nothing if they be not compelled; as every pin of their Tabernacle, and the whole frame of their government, is brought from the Mountains of Rome, so that principal maxim of Popish policy, that the Church must not be conceived by People ever to have erred, is the chief square, and great rule, according to the which hitherto they have ruled all their administrations, to think of a reformation in any thing were to give ground to the adversaries, were the beginning of a declination, they see a deep precipice before them, if once they be put to a moving they know not where the rest and period of their descent may be, so by all means, the present station must be kept without the yielding willingly of one foot of ground. 
No Prelate can be excused of great guiltiness.  Have not these spiritual Lords sitten already above 4. months in the convocation and Parliament? have any of them to this day made the least motion to stop the course of those heresies and Idolatries which to their certain knowledge have been these years passed like a gangrene, like a pest, like a fiery poison infecting souls over all the Land? Should any reasonable men ever more take notice of any their motions? can ever any faithfulness be expected from them who so manifestly have betrayed the trust which the King and the Country did commit to them, of their religion, and souls? no thanks to them, that Canterbury long ere now had not so firmly rooted Arminianism and Popery in the Church, with a tyrannous oppression in the state, as we and our posterity had never been able in any after age to have gotten it amended. It is easy to discern what spirit he is, who moves men to be clamorously contentious, when the question cometh to any matter of their own dignity, their own rents, their own ceremonious toys, but to be dumb like fish, when before their eyes, the doctrine, the worship, the Saints of God, are most miserably trampled under the foul feet of most insolent men. Those of the Prelates who count themselves most orthodox, and innocent, cannot be excused of these crimes, which by their connivance they did foster, and well near as much promove by their suffering, 
The World upon good grounds, expects from this Parliament, the abolition of Episcopacy.  as the other who were esteemed more guilty by their do; who so will be pleased to make an accurate search by what means the Prince of darkness did most enable the one, I mean the Canterburian Prelates, to be so active and successful in their evil design, and by what means the other who still in private did profess their disaffection from these ways, were subdued to be so passive and silent, when error, superstition, and oppression, in the Church were advancing with such speed before their face, Episcopacy will be found the instrument which closed the mouth, and tied the hands of the one from speaking or doing those things which the honour of God, and welfare of the Church, than so deeply wounded, did require, but opened the mouth, and strengthened the hand of the other, for saying and doing what ever they found conducible for their mischievous ends. How happy and glorious a work would it be for this gracious Parliament, to add as a Crown and Coap-stone to all the blessings which the Church and State hath felt already, and yet expects from their hands, the breaking in pieces of this unhappy instrument, which in the hands of evil men is a very sharp sword, and firebrand, for executing of all their furious follies, and in the hand of good men becometh a bond of brass or steel, for binding them up from those good words and works, which the World would certainly have expected from them, if they had been free of such slavish fetters?  
If it might be the will of God to move the minds of the House of Commons, to behold the tears, the sighs, the prayers, which for many year's numbers of godly souls have been pouring out before God and men, from their heavy sense of the cruel oppression, spiritual and temporal, of the hierarchy, to read with a compassionate eye the supplications, which from the hands and hearts of many thousands, in all the corners of the Kingdom, are come already, and daily increase against that root of all their woe: to look upon the respectful faces of all the Reformed Churches who at this instant of time with more passionate desires, with a greater measure of hope then ever before, are greedily gazing to behold, if now at last, that great stumbling block and sole impediment of a full conformity amongst all the gracious Sisters can be gotten removed, and cast into the Sea. But above all, to blenke up and fix their thoughts upon that great God, who but just now, here saved them all from so horrible a danger, and in the midst of despair, has lifted up to them an ensign of the fairest hopes; Unto that God, who daily walks in the midst of these Honourable Houses, which he alone has both assembled and kept thus long together above the thoughts of all men, whether friends or foes, expecting by way of thankfulness from those who desire to be counted faithful servants, either to him or their Country, a full resolution to govern themselves in the affairs of his House, especially this great one which so nearly concerns his honour, by his sole pleasure, without any regard of worldly midses, or base ends, which may draw them away one hairs breadth from his Majesty's direction: If it may be the good pleasure of the Lord to settle such thoughts in the hearts of the house of Commons, they are few who make question, but by their means, the higher house of the Peers may be induced, as in all things else, so in this, to concur in a joint supplication towards our gracious Sovereign, that by the strength of their threefold cord, they may pull up that old bitter root, which so long hath been noxious to the soil, both of the Church and State.  
If otherways the thoughts of the lower house should be diverted from these and the like considerations, if they should faint and give over to prosecute with courage, with faith, and hope, this truly noble design, they would do well to forethink, unto whom after ages will impute all the inconveniences which readily may be procured to the King, to the Country, to the Churches abroad, by this unhappy Episcopacy, which if now retained after so full an examination of its nature and consequences in so grave and wise a Court cannot but take deeper root than ever, & be more firmly established against all possibility of any future removal. What ever the events hereof may prove, our Gracious Sovereign, and higher House of Parliament, may not so well be charged therewith, they having given so many late documents of their great readiness to hearken unto all the equitable motions, though never so full of difficulties at the first appearance, which the House of Commons with any unanimity and earnestness have as yet proponed: Beside, it is to that House alone, unto which the numerous petitions demonstrating, not only the excesses of the men, but the inherent and essential corruptions of the office hath been presented: It is the state of Commons that most have tasted of Episcopacies' bitterfruits, It is the Commons of the Land who will most be beaten, if Bishops remain with their pastoral rod, who most will be trod upon by the feet of their pride, and spoiled with the violence of their rapacious hands. To this House therefore, above all others, since for this once, God has put in their hand to may, if they will, shall be ascribed either the unutterable grief of the Godly, for retaining, or their unspeakable joy, for utter abolishing all degrees of Episcopacy.  
FINIS.   

Errata.  
IN the Epistle l 19 r. thy. p. 10. l. 3. r. us with. p. 17. l. 2. r. Gersem Bucous. p. 25. lin. 23. for that read what.   

The Stationer to the buying Reader.  
LOving Reader, be pleased to take notice that the question of Episcopacy discussed from Scripture and Fathers, promised upon the title of this Book, was intended by the Reverend Author to be joined to this Reply, but some weighty cause having brought this to public view first, and by itself, I thought good (after the printing of the said title, in service both to him and thee) to give notice of it. I rest  
Yours T. V.